seven small companies

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seven small companies

by abcgmat » Wed May 09, 2012 4:32 am
Three large companies and seven small companies currently manufacture a product with potential military
applications. If the government regulates the industry, it will institute a single set of manufacturing specifications to which all ten companies will have to adhere. In this case, therefore, since none of the seven small companies can afford to convert their production lines to a new set of manufacturing specifications, only the three large companies will be able to remain in business. Which of the following is an assumption on which the author's argument relies?
A. None of the three large companies will go out of business if the government does not regulate the manufacture of the product.
B. It would cost more to convert the production lines of the small companies to a new set of manufacturing specifications than it would to convert the production lines of the large companies.
C. Industry lobbyists will be unable to dissuade the government from regulating the industry.
D. Assembly of the product produced according to government manufacturing specifications would be more complex than current assembly procedures.
E. None of the seven small companies currently manufactures the product to a set of specifications that would match those the government would institute if the industry were to be regulated.

[spoiler]OA:E[/spoiler]
Could you let mw know how to logically negate option A, as it has (none, not) more negation words
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by confuse mind » Wed May 09, 2012 4:42 am
IMO - E

None ------->(logical negation) Some (atleast 1)
Some of the large...................

I hope you don't want to know why A does not fit in the correct answer choice.

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by abcgmat » Wed May 09, 2012 5:02 am
Hi Confuse mind,

Thank you for the explanation. I am still confused

conclusion of the argument is :If the government regulates, Only three large companies will remain, implying that none of the seven will remain

Logically negated conclusion is :Even If the government regulates, Some of the 7 small companies will remain.

Option A: None of the three large companies will go out of business if the government does not regulate the manufacture of the product

There are two possible answers when we negate
(i)Some of the three large companies will go out of business if the government does not regulate the manufacture of the product
--The argument talks about the situation when regulation happens . Out of Scope

(ii)None of the three large companies will go out of business if the government does regulate the manufacture of the product
--this is already mentioned in the argument that the three large companies will remain, hence is not assumption

The two versions of the negated choice are different . Which one of them is correct
I get confused on how to negate the answer choice if it involes more than 1 negation words, even if they may not hurt the argument.
Do we have technique which can solve this issue

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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Wed May 09, 2012 8:25 am
When negating, we want to focus on the dominant clause (the main idea of the sentence). In this case, since the conclusion is mainly about going out of business, I think we can say that A's main idea is the part about going out of business.
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by abcgmat » Wed May 09, 2012 10:53 pm
Option A: None of the three large companies will go out of business if the government does not regulate the manufacture of the product

Does it imply that
Logical negation should be: some of the large companies will not go out of business if the government does regulate the manufacture of the product